Clock suckers
Posted by Christie Malry on October 30, 2010 at 3:34 pm
It happens every year. Actually increasingly it happens twice a year. That is, people in positions of authority who have the 'bright' idea of messing around with our clocks. Don't these people have anything better to do?
Here's their basic idea. They've noticed that people use less energy after the clocks go forward in the spring. And that they use more energy when the clocks go back in the autumn. Ergo, the use of energy must be due to the hour of daylight this gives people at the end of the day. So let's change the clocks permanently to being an hour ahead, or two hours during the summer months, and we'll use less energy forever! Profit!
The latest moron to take up this cause is Rebecca Harris, the Conservative MP for Castle Point, wherever the hell that is. Her vain campaign aims to prevent the clocks going back tonight, so she has failed almost before she has begun. Yet the idea that we should move to a GMT+1/GMT+2 system is even more stupid than the idea that we should move to GMT+1 without a summertime.
You see, we are at the westernmost point of Europe. If we gave a stuff about Europe, we would get up early in the day in order to maximise the intersection between our working day and theirs. But we actually start our working day later than many European countries, and that's before you take account of the hour's time difference. By the time we finally stroll into work, at 10am European time, they've probably already been there for 2 hours. Almost time for lunch, too.
Instead of messing about with the clocks, we should change the working day. Government can't dictate to private businesses what time to start, but it can change the start of the school day, say to 8am. And it can instruct its own employees to start earlier too. The private sector would probably fall into line in due course. We could all finish at 4pm instead of 5pm and we'd get our extra hour of daylight at the end of the day.
As for complaints from sports venues, they are even more stupid. Football only starts at 3pm because it always has done. If they really wanted, they could start at 2pm. Wimbledon and cricket could start earlier too. C'mon, most people start work at 9am. Why can't tennis players and cricketers do the same?
Harris has been hoodwinked by a simple, but obviously false argument. She honestly believes that it's better to change the clocks instead of addressing the more fundamental issues that in fact give us problems. We choose to work 9-5, when we could just as easily work 8-4. Let's deal with that instead of messing with the time of day.
Until she sees sense, she can be inducted as the latest clock sucker, that merry band of idiots who think it's that thing on the wall with two hands and a face that dictates when we get up.
"By the time we finally stroll into work, at 10am European time..."
You're starting too early. By the time I stroll into work, most of Europe has already gone out for lunch.